Final 2013 RG Report - 17 May

The ICES advisory service quality assurance program requested that a team of graduate and post-doctoral students and their professor serve as a review group, as specified in Guidelines for Review Groups (ACOM 2009). The group initially met on 6 May to review the ICES advisory process, RG guidelines, and to assign several WG report sections to each reviewer. Additionally, the various assessment models used by ICES (e.g., SCAA, XSA, TSA, GADGET, etc…) were discussed in order to familiarize reviewers with common assessment techniques and resolve any outstanding questions. Members reviewed WG report sections independently, and presented their summaries and reviews to the group in a series of daily meetings from 13-16 May. At these meetings reviewers provided a summary of their report, focusing on changes to methodology, stock status or basis for advice. At the close of each presentation the review group discussed and finalized recommendations for each stock. Reviews were collated and finalized 16-17 May by the co-chairs, which included verifying the data provided in each review and resolving any outstanding questions raised by reviewers. The final RG report was prepared by the RG co-chairs on 16-17 May.